Russell felt extremely uncomfortable. This wasn’t unusual, but simultaneously he was feeling comfortable as well, if about different things entirely, and having both emotions present was definitely out of the ordinary. Er, out of his ordinary, at least. Whether anyone else would agree was another matter entirely.

The main reason why he was uncomfortable was because he was wearing a romperjumpsuit some kind of one-piece clothing that was vaguely in between ‘childish’ and ‘actual normal person clothes’. Russell had never worn something like this before. Mostly since he’d never owned something like this. It was a Christmas gift from his great-aunt, who had claimed this style was getting popular on the east coast of the U.S., and Russell had eyed up its slightly-grainy-oak mid-grey dubiously but thanked her for it anyways and promised to wear it when he next had a reason to. Which was now, apparently. He was currently sitting partway up the bleachers on the Pitch, and he had timed his arrival so that everyone else was (hopefully) at breakfast now, thus now he could (hopefully) recover a scrap of self-esteem so as to actually get himself to class wearing this.

Or at least to get himself through the Passageways and then around that one unfortunate corner in the public halls in order to escape into Cetus and change.

The main reason why he was comfortable was because, well, the romperjumpsuit one-piece was genuinely comfortable. A bit stiff on the outside, but the inside was soft, and he did think it convenient - it was easier to match pieces of his outfit when most of it was all stuck together anyways. He’d still had to do a little matching, of course, lining up the supposed Cetus-coloured vest and mitts his mother had bought him last January with the dark-almost-Cetus-grey stripes on his socks, and then the lighter autumn-birch-leaf-grey bits on his socks with the lighter scheme of his almost-plaid-but-not-quite scarf. But he hadn’t had to do the whole pants and shirt routine… Huh, when he tallied it that way, the one-piece had really only saved him one step in his morning process. But he was trying to be optimistic, okay? It was hard enough without adding logic to the mix.

Which brought Russell right back to thinking about why he was uncomfortable. Namely, he was Outside during Daytime (never a good idea), it was sunny with a cold wind (or at least colder than the Californian teen was used to), there was snow wedged in his toes (he’d cast a heating charm on his sandals as soon as he learned how, because he preferred sandals over any other kind of footwear, but that didn’t stop the snow from squishing weirdly), he’d accidentally drunk half a normal coffee when he nipped into the Diner at the crack of dawn before realizing he forgot to ask for decaf (hence why his nystagmus was acting up in a particularly bad way), and he couldn’t stop his brain from circling back to last week (it had actually been exactly eleven days ago, but Russell told himself ‘last week’ since then he could sort of pretend it had faded from memory, even though who was he kidding and of course it hadn’t).

The whole reason why he had come outside was to a) wear his new one-piece so that he didn’t have to lie to Great-aunt Penny when she eventually asked if he had done more than fold it in the bottom of his closet, and to b) try looking around the glimmering, frosted Pitch and see if he could manage to trick his brain into thinking it didn’t need to induce a splitting headache so that he could, ideally, be a midway-decent Seeker in time for their upcoming match. Instead, Russell was finding himself increasingly a) closing his eyes without thinking about it because that was the most involuntary survival instinct he had and b) thinking about Jaydon without wanting to because why??

It wasn’t even Jaydon he was focused on, not really, because he didn’t honestly know the other boy very well. Rather, it was the fact that they weren’t very close and yet still Jay had kissed him and it hadn’t been the worst was what Russell was currently spiralling around. More specifically, the first half of that, because the people he did know barely seemed to tolerate him so why would someone he didn’t know kiss him? The second half, the part where it hadn’t been the worst, would have to wait its turn before he could handle tackling it.

Needless to say, the bony teen was pretty distracted, and only moved when he suddenly realized Jaws was no longer in his pocket. “Jaws!” he yelped, jumping to his feet and then immediately hopping between feet to make sure he hadn’t inadvertently jumped on top of the mouse. Oh, no, oh no oh no, Jaws never ran off on his own and especially not anywhere where there were owls and cats and other meaner animals (....so uh, ‘never’, yeah, that held). Russell’s internal freaking-out somehow slipped out of his mouth. “Oh no oh no Jaws oh no Jaws oh no oh no--”

What was the point of living indoors and underground if you still had to deal with snow? Holland liked snow but they did not like walking through it. RMI should have heated pathways (or just make the ... more

“Do you… need some help?” Russell didn’t even notice he was being addressed for a solid-- well, not a minute, not even in this state could he lose track of his surroundings for that long, but his... more

Russell shouted monosyllabically for a few moments and then threw himself onto a bleacher . Okay. So really just… standard Russell stuff. But he did seem genuinely distressed so Holland drew their... more

Apparently not. Though really, that shouldn’t be much surprised. Russell’s coordination skills were very time-sensitive; at night, he assumed he was better at moving about than anyone else, and at... more

The good news was that Holland had caught the mouse. Even better, Jaws was apparently fine, because Russell wasn’t freaking out any more. Nope, spoke too soon, he was still freaking out but it was... more

“Huh?” Russell blinked. (Which had likely gone unnoticed, since he was wearing sunglasses, and even if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses his nystagmus was still acting up, more literally up-and-down,... more

“But it’s still a rodent in your hair,” Holland argued. “How could that possibly be the best place for him? Pockets exist.” Not that Holland would consider Russell’s hair very clean without the... more

"Yeah, pockets are good, too." He was pretty sure that agreement wasn't what Holland was looking for, though he was also pretty sure he didn't know what more he could say to make his point about why... more

“ Can you do it in the dark? ” What? Oh, haircuts. “I mean, I need light to see what I’m doing, like anyone else. Are most lights still too bright even with sunglasses or just closing your eyes?” But ... more

Fidgeting aimlessly with the fingers of his gloves, Russell managed a sort of nod/shrug when Holland asked more about his light -- preferences? Was that the right word? No, not really, it was more a... more